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Peterloo: The Massacre and its Background
The purpose of this study is to fill in the background to an event which, as a name, is one of the best known in nineteenth-century history.
The question of why the crowds came together is fundamentally an economic the Lancashire operatives were spurred to attend the great meeting by the pressure of overwhelming economic distress. The question of how the crowds assembled is one of political it centres round the working-class Radical Reformers and their extensive network of agitation.
The first part of the present study attempts to deal with the economic background to Peterloo, and the second with its political background; part three describes the actual course of events up to and including the massacre, and part four discusses the aftermath of Peterloo.
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‘Mr Read has made an important contribution to the study of Peterloo in general English history, to some extent taking it out of the context of the history of the labour movement and relating it to the whole social milieu of England’s “most revolutionary” city’— Asa Briggs in The Listener
‘Only patient and dispassionate research into local history could produce this background with all its long-standing animosities, its cross-currents of conflicting interests, and its ultimately tragic tensions. This has now been achieved by Mr Donald Read, whose admirable study sets before us the economic, social and religious situation of the Manchester area in and around the year 1819 like a finely drawn map of a field of magnetic force’— History Today
‘With patience and admirable lucidity the author has succeeded in disentangling the main threads leading through this bizarre affair, and with still greater honesty he resists the obvious temptation to overplay its subsequent importance’— The Times Educational Supplement
Donald Read (1930 – 1 October 2018) was a British historian and emeritus Professor of Modern History at the University of Kent, who was appointed to write the authorised history of Reuters. Read died in 2018, aged 88.
The question of why the crowds came together is fundamentally an economic the Lancashire operatives were spurred to attend the great meeting by the pressure of overwhelming economic distress. The question of how the crowds assembled is one of political it centres round the working-class Radical Reformers and their extensive network of agitation.
The first part of the present study attempts to deal with the economic background to Peterloo, and the second with its political background; part three describes the actual course of events up to and including the massacre, and part four discusses the aftermath of Peterloo.
:
‘Mr Read has made an important contribution to the study of Peterloo in general English history, to some extent taking it out of the context of the history of the labour movement and relating it to the whole social milieu of England’s “most revolutionary” city’— Asa Briggs in The Listener
‘Only patient and dispassionate research into local history could produce this background with all its long-standing animosities, its cross-currents of conflicting interests, and its ultimately tragic tensions. This has now been achieved by Mr Donald Read, whose admirable study sets before us the economic, social and religious situation of the Manchester area in and around the year 1819 like a finely drawn map of a field of magnetic force’— History Today
‘With patience and admirable lucidity the author has succeeded in disentangling the main threads leading through this bizarre affair, and with still greater honesty he resists the obvious temptation to overplay its subsequent importance’— The Times Educational Supplement
Donald Read (1930 – 1 October 2018) was a British historian and emeritus Professor of Modern History at the University of Kent, who was appointed to write the authorised history of Reuters. Read died in 2018, aged 88.
- GenresHistory
326 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1973
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About the author
Donald Read
22 booksDonald Read (1930-2018) was a British historian and emeritus Professor of Modern History at the University of Kent, who was appointed to write the authorised history of Reuters. Read died in 2018, aged 88.
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